Multiversial
by Kain-Pathos-Crow
Summary: Millions of doors, millions of variables, but each time, as many constants. A man and a lighthouse. A girl and a protector. With the manipulation of possibility space by the city Columbia, these constants have begun to bleed across time and space, and threads are beginning to cross. What must it be like, to see and speak with what you could have been?
1. Thread 1-1

The time passed in trickles, much like the drips and drabs of leaking pipes. Elizabeth hugged her knees, trying not to look at the bloodstains matting her skirt. She couldn't tell how long she had been here, in this sunken hell. The doctors regarded her as a specimen, something to poke and prod and watch.

Even worlds away, from the top of the world to the bottom of the ocean, the nature of the tower did not change.

The thinnest edges of a tear flickered in front of her. True, there were others about her, larger and easier way to try and escape, but they were ill suited for an underwater cell. Elizabeth knew enough about physics that if she attempted to breach the hull with these, the pressure would crush the entire structure, and her with it.

No, what was special about this tear is that it led to a different path to freedom. Before her, on a distorted isle of tile surrounded by cold concrete, lay a pistol. It was a revolver, much like one she had seen Booker use many times before. Stray rounds lay scattered around it, as if had been dropped carelessly, where ever it truly was. It was so unassuming, so simple, but it was still a tool to kill.

Her pale fingers reached for the smooth, wooden handle, her hand shaking. The shocked face of Fitzroy sprang to mind unbidden, gasping for breath. The blood barely showed on the woman's dark face. She pointed an accusing finger at her murderer, eyes filled with confusion.

Elizabeth's hand froze, briefly hanging in midair before darting back within the folds of her clothing.

That face was there every time she had closed her eyes since... she had... done it. It haunted her dreams, following her, accusing her. And when she woke, the blood was still there, soaked into her clothing.

Voices echoed weakly from outside her cell, their footsteps punctuated by the drizzle of water.

"-...know the one, he came with the girl. They scrubbed him up and down, and he wouldn't say anything. Kept blabbing on about some city in the sky,"

"A city in the sky? Ridiculous,"

_Were they talking about Booker?_

Elizabeth shifted from her position, crawling towards the door, ear strained for listening.

"I know, right? Anyway, they gave him the work over, the whole nine yards, everything, and he STILL wouldn't spill the beans on who sent him or the girl,

"Yeesh,"

"So, the big bugs figure they gotta get something outta him, so they had us drag his ass up to the chink for that "Protector" program thing,"

"To Suchong? Christ... poor bastard,"

The girl bit her lip as she hunkered closer to the door, tears starting to brim in the corner of her eyes. Turning back to where the revolver lay through the tear, Elizabeth made up her mind.

Two short raps thudded off of the cell's metal door as the attendant stepped inside.

"Up and at 'em little lady, time for tes-"

A pair of shots ripped through the first lab attendants torso, another three through the second. The third shot hit the man square in the face, the bullet's heavy bore bursting his head like an overripe fruit.

For a moment, Elizabeth's breath hitched, and she gagged. She doubled over, breathing heavily, her vision swimming before she swallowed down the bile. Despite trembling, she managed to straightened her posture without retching, but the churning tightness in her belly wouldn't stop. Both hands still clenched the smoking gun, and her breath came in quick, short gulps.

The first man had slid down the side of the door, his path leaving a red smear, his hand still clamped on the handle. He breathlessly tried to speak, staring at Elizabeth with those eyes. The same eyes that Fitzroy had looked at her with. Slowly, they flickered, the life draining out of them, and the man went still.

_You did what you needed to do to survive._

–

Optimized Eugenics. This was where they were holding Booker. Elizabeth's heart was racing, pounding incessantly. It was a constant sound, rumbling in her ears so loudly she was afraid that it would get her caught.

She took a deep breath, trying to still her jittery nerves, holding the pistol close. She hated the thing. She hated how it looked, hated how it felt, hated how it worked so well. But most of all, she hated how it made her hate herself.

But as much as she hated it, it was the only friend she had at the moment, and the only thing that could help her rescue Booker. She didn't know what they were going to do to him.

Elizabeth took another sharp breath, this one almost a sob, and closed her eyes tightly.

_You can do this. You can do this for Booker._

Quietly, her breathing stilled, and she turned to the wall she had been pressed against. Reaching her hands into the tear, she pushed aside the veil of reality, and passed quickly into the laboratory.

The silence was stifling.

As quietly as she could manage, Elizabeth crept through the facility, looking through doors and windows where she could. The evidence she saw of things past unnerved her. Strange experiments, medical in nature, performed on all manner of subjects, ranging from grown men to even children.

_What had Booker been sentenced to? What are they even doing here?_

A hard sickness formed in the pit of her stomach, gnawing at her in anticipation of what she might find. The girl couldn't help but shiver.

Many rooms were empty save for large simmering vats of strange, glimmering liquid, or filled with things that bore no goodness thinking about, until at last, she found the hints of a trail.

A red ascot lay among a pile of discarded clothing in a small, clinical room.

_Booker!_

Scanning about quickly, Elizabeth made sure there was no one about, creeping inside. They smelled faintly of smoke and leather, gunpowder and oil, a strange, dry musk. The ascot, along with the rest of the clothing, were definitely Booker's. She took the clothes, looking to stick them into a nearby bag. Booker would probably want these back, when she rescued him.

As the young lady pulled a bag from the table, a small device was pulled with it, clattering to the floor. She nearly shrieked, her entire body tensing instantly.

And she heard a voice from the object. It seemed to be a miniature voxophone, or something very like it.

"New one come in today. This one... different. Blood screens show he have something strange in him, like plasmid, but not. X-rays show haemorraging in brain. No one know where this man has come from, but Ryan want finished Protector. Suchong not want to give up this man, but Suchong told man had girl with him. Maybe girl will prove just, if not more interesting. But for now, maybe this man will be good candidate for one of final production prototype..."

Elizabeth's blood chilled, and the knot of nauseating dread in her gut felt like a lead weight.

_I have to find him! I have to find him soon, before they do..._

The girl swallowed heavily, pushing down another wave of nausea as her imagination went wild.

_Before they do whatever it is they're planning to do._

She looked down at the clothes, stuffing them frantically into the bag, and slinging it over her shoulder.

_If his clothes are here, that must mean he's not very far away._

Hurrying through the remaining rooms, Elizabeth kept an eye out for whatever looked like it might lead further to Booker, until finally she saw it. Live Subject Testing.

_That MUST be where they were holding Booker!_

Cautiously, finger on the trigger of pistol, she crept into the room, to be met by a series of strange flickering monitors. To the far right was a window, a pair of men in white surgeons smocks clouding the view.

The loud ker-clack of Elizabeth pulling back the trigger got the attention of the scientists. Their composed indifference became stammered shock as they were greeted with the sight before them. A bloodstained and angry girl, the business end of a large revolver the exclamation point of her heavy presence.

"Where is he?" she hissed quietly, extending her arms fully in front of her.

There was little movement in the pregnant silence that followed. One of the men nervously cleared his throat, casting a glance back to the window behind him. The other made a break for it.

Elizabeth wasn't taking any chances. Six shots rang out, two of them missing, the other four ripping through the bodies of their targets.

There was a commotion downstairs now, she could hear it. Two of the shots had passed through the consoles by the window, and apparently it was having an effect on whatever was happening downstairs.

A surge of electrical discharge surrounded a large vat in the center of the room, in which, an indistinct man shape could be seen. Around it were panicking scientists, frantically trying to get a hold of the procedure. Several fled as the discharge grew worse, earthing its lethal energy in the men below.

_Oh god no, BOOKER!_

Out of sheer desperation and terror, Elizabeth did the only thing that came to mind.

She ripped open a massive tear in the room, to an enraged thunderstorm that tore the room apart, shunting those left inside into a whirlwind of death, and shattering the windows in front of her. Without pause, without hesitation, she leapt through the opening into the room below as the tear winked out of existence.

Grabbing a wrench, she struck the side of the vat, again and again, until the vile broth split the side of the vessel, gushing out, and revealing the man inside.

"...Booker?"

The figure hung weakly from the restraints, a network of tubes and piping jutting from its arms. It was clad in a suit of leather and metal, a diving bell fused to its shoulders, the ports glowing a vibrant yellow.

Elizabeth's heart was beating madly now, and the sickness in her belly writhed uncontrollably.

This... this thing couldn't be Booker. He was a big man, sure, but this thing, it was massive.

There was a crack above her, above the remnants of the vat, and the harness released the beast. It fell with a thud, barely able to push itself to its knees.

She took a few worried steps back, eyes still trained on this massive creature. Songbird's awful trill resounded in her memory, threatening to break the scant shards of bravery she had left.

It reached for her, and she gasped.

"N-no- don't! Stay away!" she stammered uncontrollably, and the hand jerked back, as if hurt, the light flickering.

Elizabeth paused, peering closer.

"Booker?" she repeated quietly, her heart sinking, consumed by the roiling mass of dread within her.

The figure managed a short nod, emitting a low, keening wail.

"Oh... Oh god Booker," sobbed the woman, bursting into tears. She fell into his arms, trying to hug this thing that Booker had become. "...what have they done to you?"

It handled her gently, as if she was made of glass, tenderly stoking her head. She was practically a child in its grasp.

"I'm sorry Booker, I'm so, so sorry,"


	2. Thread 2-1

Elizabeth looked over the supplies, trying to estimate how much they'd have for the next battle. Every day, the Vox brought in more and more wounded men and women, and less and less medical goods. Painkillers in particular were becoming particularly scarce, and the impromptu surgeon dreaded the time when she would run out.

Especially for Booker. The man needed the drugs like most needed air, to keep the burning agony at bay, to quiet the rage, and most importantly, to lull him into the quiet meditation that was the closest thing he could get to sleep.

She ran a hand over the operating table, gentle with the tattered, blemished fabric. Elizabeth would have preferred to change the under sheet after each operation, but circumstance would not allow it. In the end, she had to settle with having it washed at the end of every night. But soap and water did little to hide the stains of the past.

Each mark told a story, a life changed, saved or ended. She could still see the marks where she had... changed Booker. Saved wasn't the right word, was it? True, he was alive, he could walk and talk, think and fight, do most things a man was expected to do. But at what cost? Had she truly been justified in what she had done to him? Had she done it for him, or for her?

These questions plagued the young doctor as the memories came flooding back, much as they did almost every night.

"He got shot up somethin' fierce. Might be best to just let 'im die," intoned Fitzroy, pursing her lips, and watching Booker lay limply on the table. Her arms were folded across her chest, a sad, almost bored expression resting on her face.

The man was quite pale now, making the blood that was pooling about him stand out all the more.

"How can you say that?!" snapped Elizabeth, frantically trying to stem the bleeding. "This is all your fault, and you're just going to pass him off?"

The revolutionary simply shrugged. "If he dies for the cause, he died for freedom. Ain't no shame in that,"

"No no no! Booker, don't you die on me!" cried the doctor. The bleeding was getting worse, and his heartbeat was growing more irregular. Without some kind of miracle, Elizabeth knew that this man, the man who had saved her from that tower, who had given up everything and more for her, he was going to die. And that thought ripped at her insides, filling her with a dreadful, leaden sickness.

"This one ain't getting back up. There're a good deal other men that need your' hand sawbones, good, honest, colored men. You can't just sacrifice them just for this here one white fella,"

"I am not going to let him die! There's got to be a way, there's got to-..."

Elizabeth's line of sight slowly traced to the metal exoskeletons that lay strewn about. The vestiges of the building's former life as a Finkton warehouse, they had been hastily shunted aside when the Vox came to inhabit the place. The bulk of the medical goods that originally had prompted the revolutionaries annexation were long gone, but the remnants, being blueprints, instructions and tools, had been left where they been discarded.

Fitzroy followed the young woman's gaze, frowning as she saw the autobodies.

"What in the sam hell do you think you're doin'?"

"Help me move this thing! Now!" yelled Elizabeth, dragging a partially opened crate to the table, hands clenched firmly against the wooden edge.

"You can not be thinkin' of puttin' him in one of them things..."

"Look, either help me, or get out!" was the terse reply as the girl starting yanking odd devices and tools from the innards of the crate, placing them haphazardly on the side table. A paperback manual, unbound save for string, passed through her hands, her eyes glossing over the words therein as she flicked through it.

"...he'd better off a martyr than a-" started Fitzroy, disgust clear in her voice.

"A what!? Huh!? He'd be better off a dead man than a what!?" snarled the young doctor, face flush, lip curled back.

Noting Elizabeth's trembling hands, balled up into tight little fists and shaking at her sides, the Vox Populi looked the girl dead in the eyes. A moment of strained silence passed between the two.

"...You bes' be thankful you gotta lotta lives ridin' on you girl, 'cause anybody else bring that tone with me, they ain't gonna walk away from that," Fitzroy uttered, face twisted into a sneer.

Elizabeth turned her back on the other woman, hurriedly trying to finish her preparations.

"If you're not going to help, then leave. There are other "good, honest" men to save. Leave me to this one,"

Screaming roused Elizabeth from her reverie, the image of Booker's prone form fading from her minds eye. She could hear a man and a woman outside, the woman arguing angrily, the man rebuffing her coldly.

"I told you no,"

"Lemme at the goddamn girl DeWitt!"

"She's sleeping,"

"I don' care, she needs a talkin' to!"

"About what?"

"She's helping the enemy. I know she's been treating Founders 'longside the Vox."

"I don't know what you're talking about Fitzroy, and I don't appreciate you making baseless accusations. I suggest you leave real soon before somebody hears you and gets the wrong sort of idea."

"Why you helping her DeWitt? She's just a privileged little white girl, full of naïve little ideas. She don' know how the real world works."

"She knows just fine,"

"She know just fine when she turned you into that thing? I can see it in your eyes DeWitt. She done stripped you of the things that kept you human, kept you a man. Every day I see a little less of you in there, and a little more of the monster. Pretty soon, you gonna be gone. Only thing'll be left is the beast."

"Leave. Now."

"You know I'm right."

"I said LEAVE!"

The last sentence was punctuated with a heavy thud, and the walls rattled. There was an angry, feminine snort as footsteps faded into the distance.

A sliver of light lanced through the darkness as the door opened, and the hulking shape of Booker let himself in. His bulk was sizable, and in most other building, he'd be forced to stoop, if the doors were large enough to admit the ex-Pinkerton at all.

"Elizabeth? You there?" Booker intoned, lumbering around the room, turning on a few lamps as he went. He moved about with an ugly gracelessness, much as he tried not to. The limbs of the autobody had little in the way of dexterousness, its heavy limbs more suited for raw combat. His knuckles still bore the reddish brown stains of a recent fight, their color near indistinguishable from the ferrous patina of rust.

"Yes, I'm here," she said quietly, stepping out of the gloom.

"Ah," he answered, a mild sense of sheepishness crossing his face. "I guess you heard us arguing. About what Daisy said-"

"She was telling the truth," interrupted Elizabeth faintly, unable to look Booker in the eye.

Booker froze, his features silhouetted by the light.

"...what?"

"About..."

_About what I did to you. About how selfish and naïve I was. About everything she said about me._

"...about me treating Founder soldiers," admitted the young women lamely, wringing her hands together, thimble turning between thumb and forefinger.

_...you coward._

Elizabeth turned the thimble anxiously, biting her bottom lip. Guilt roiled around in her belly like a snake, and she cast her eyes even further downwards, no longer capable of looking at Booker at all.

"It's certainly something," admitted Booker softly. "To be a doctor first like that. It's one thing to kill a man, but it's something else completely to heal one, especially if he's meant you ill, and you'll earn folks ire just by doing it,"

"Do you..." started Elizabeth, hesitating once more.

_Do you hate me?_

"Do you think that's wrong?"

_Gutless._

Booker shook his head, limping closer.

"If anything, I'm proud of you. It takes a lot of dedication to keep to your principles like that,"

_Even if that dedication is what helped put you in that machine..._

"Anyway, you'd best head off to bed. You look plenty tired,"

"Y-yeah," mumbled Elizabeth, still looking at her feet. She shuffled off to the makeshift cot in the next room, silently hating herself for her lack of courage.


	3. Thread 3-1

"Slate, salts!" yelled Elizabeth, chucking the luminescent blue bottle at the aging veteran. He caught it in one gloved hand, tearing off the top with his teeth and gulping it down hungrily. An ugly chuckle followed suit, and with a primal battle yell, the old man cleared the small wall he had been using as cover.

Like a bolt of eldritch lightning, Slate shot across the battlefield, smashing into the clump of soldiers like the wrath of some angry, incandescent god of war. The spark of fulmination spread across from his impact, a momentary crack in the tapestry of world, and then all was still. The old captain stood there, flaring randomly as another crackle of electricity shot up his form, the last man standing. The others lied smoldering and broken, cast aside like childrens dolls. And for a moment, he was a monolith, a glimmering monument to combat.

His stance broke, and Cornelius Slate fell to his knees, hacking and coughing. His hands fumbled at his bandolier, trying to bring another vigor bottle to lips.

"Mister Slate!" Elizabeth came running, careful to avoid stepping on the scorched and steaming fallen, trying to see to her protector.

"It's Captain Slate," growled the old man, wiping faint traces of fluorescence from beard and mustache. "_Captain_," he stressed, slowly rising to his feet. "Or simply refer to me as Slate, I do not care. But not "mister". I am not a civilian, nor have been for some time,"

Elizabeth stood before him, arms crossed and lips pursed, her expression softening slightly as the man's age shone through his griping.

"Are you okay?" she offered, extending a hand.

Slate's eye flashed from the young girls hand to her face, then back to the ground. He shifted, lips pressed thin, slowly pushing himself up.

"I'll be fine," he intoned briskly, even as the swaying of his turnabout betrayed him. "We had best make haste. I have no doubt that this taster of Comstock's tin soldiers is simply the beginning of a larger banquet, and I am glut with these few,"

Elizabeth nodded, falling in line beside his awkward gait. They traveled in silence for some minutes before the young women decided to break the silence.

"So who was this... Mr DeWitt?" she hazarded, turning to Slate with a curious face.

""_Corporal_" DeWitt," began Slate, once again putting emphasis on the military rank. "Was a veteran of the Battle of Wounded Knee, along with myself. We called him the White Injun, on account of the grisly trophies he would claim. As I understand it, at some point in the years following his military service, he became an agent of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I know little of him beyond that. In truth, I had not seen the man for nigh on a score of years, not since departing from Wounded Knee. All I know for certain is that he was a true soldier, even to the end,"

The girl's face twisted with mild disgust mention of _trophies_, but otherwise she continued with her questions.

"What was so important that he'd send you after me?"

Slate shook his head, scanning the rooftops for the slightest hint of movement before answering.

"I do not know. He did for me a great service before he met his end, and asked that I retrieve you safely and unharmed to New York with his dying breath. With not the time or the life as to explain its purpose, he only expressed its importance,"

The veteran's expression hardened, his jaw clenched. "I will not be beholden to the man whence we meet again,"

That harsh tone killed whatever curiosity Elizabeth had, at least for the moment. Something about Slate tended to discourage idle conversation. Maybe it was his constant standoffish scowl, or the way his good eye tended to glare without effort from within his scarred and puckered skull, or the sense of withering distaste that accompanied every word.

Glancing about, hoping to find something to breach the oppressive silence between the pair, she caught sight of a winery.

"Slate, look," she chimed, pointing at the building. "There might be some more supplies in there,"

Squinting at his own gloved hand, the man closed it into a fist with a painful grimace before looking up to where the girl pointed.

"Stay within arms reach Beth," grunted Slate, another flash of electricity peeling up his from his fingertips up his arm, grounding itself in the bulbous crystal that had formed on the right side of his scalp. "I would not put it above the godless heathens of the Vox or Comstock's tin men to stage an ambush even in a place such as this.

Elizabeth snorted at the name "Beth", glowering at the old man, but said nothing, traipsing into the building after the soldier.

Inside was mostly untouched, no sign of looters or of struggle. Fine liquors lay unmolested in crates of straw, and the walls were rife with racks of assorted bottles.

"So what was this great act that Mi-... Corporal... DeWitt do for you?" asked Elizabeth, meandering through the store, hands clasped behind her back.

"He shone a burning brand to illuminate our glorious history," intoned Slate, peering at the label of a bottle in hand, head pulling back as he tried to read the fine text. "And used it burn down that travesty that Comstock had erected in his own honor,"

"...glorious history?"

Slate's scowl deepened, cutting grooves in his already lined face, tips of his mustache twitching in contempt.

"Comstock had claimed the glory of wars we had fought, painted himself the white knight of Columbia, riding in with gilded sword and winged pony, when he had been nothing of the sort! He had not paid the price in blood and flesh that we did, nor taste the cup of fraternal soldiery, no! The man was never there," he spat, twirling round and smashing the bottle on the floor, causing Elizabeth to jump with a gasp. His eye was ablaze with fury, and every word dripped with a seething hatred.

"He made a painted whore of our past, stripped me of my rank when I confronted him, then sent his dogs to snuff us out when we rebelled. But DeWitt..."

Slate slumped into a nearby chair, his breathing weighted. With a trembling hand, he unstoppered another salts bottle, quaffing its contents with a pained sigh before continuing.

"Booker DeWitt cast his lot in with us like a fitting hero, and he paid the price for it, but not before he took scores of the paltry children that Comstock called soldiers with him. In the end, he and I were the last ones left on the battlefield, and he imparted unto me his final wish,"

"This Booker DeWitt sounds like he was quite a man," admitted Elizabeth, playing with the thimble on her hand.

"That he was Beth," intoned Slate quietly, rising from his seat with a series of unhealthy clicks.

Elizabeth moved over to help him, but his unhappy glare rebuffed her, and she stopped mid flight, casting her own eyes to the ground.

The silence would most likely have gone on longer were it not for the sound of footsteps outside, accompanied by the clack of rifles and the shouts of orders.

"Goddammit, I _knew_ we should not have tarried," snapped the captain, a gout of lightning spasming from his clenched fists.

He crept to the door, pressed against the wall, taking a quick glance to the hordes outside. From the snarl that hissed through his teeth, Elizabeth could tell that there were likely far too many to fight. But a gleaming afterimage in the center of the square showed that not all hope was lost.

"Excuse me M-... _Captain_ Slate, but I think I might be able to do something," whispered Elizabeth from across the doorframe.

That cold blue eye flicked over to her, eyebrow arched quizzically. "What could you possibly do child, that I cannot?"

"Um..." mumbled Elizabeth, burying a quick flash of resentment at his tone, trying to think of a fast and apt way to explain. "I can make... _tears_. Like, a hole in this world to another world. I can bring something else from that world to this one. Something that could have been here, but _isn't_, but _is_ there in a different world,"

There was no answer but a rather wary and confused glare.

Elizabeth pursed her lips in irritation, and turned towards the door.

"_This_!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms wide, and with it, ripping wide asunder a glimmering hole into the fabric of the reality.

Out of its strange fluctuating depths came the heavy metallic tread of an eight foot tall, Pepper-Mill Gatling Gun wielding, Finkton Manufacturing forged, mechanized historical depiction of George Washington, complete with wooden teeth. With a hollow, reverberating scream of "MERCY BELONGS TO THE LORD!", the mechanical monstrosity waded into battle, sending an unrelenting spray of bullets into the bodies of the soldiers assembled.

"Good god almighty, what was that!?" squawked Slate in utter shock, eye wide and mouth agape, arms slack at his sides. He turned to Elizabeth, glancing to the rampaging patriot, then back to Elizabeth. "What manner of witchery is this!?"

This just earned a small, proud smile from the girl.

"_That_ is a tear,"

Slate ran a hand over his bald pate, shock still plastered clearly across his features.

"I feel that there is a great many things that Corporal DeWitt failed to mention to me as he lay dying, and I have no doubt that when the time comes, that man with be beholden to me many times over..."


End file.
